Wiersbe Warren W - Answers to Pastors FAQs

ANSWERS TO PASTORS FAQs
Published by David C Cook
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All rights reserved. Except for brief excerpts for review purposes, no part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form without written permission from the publisher.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible: New International Version . Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James Version of the Holy Bible. The author has added italics to Scripture quotations for emphasis.]

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wiersbe, Warren W.
Pastors' FAQ / Warren Wiersbe.-- [Rev. ed.].
p. cm.
Rev. ed. of: Confident pastoral leadership / Howard F. Sugden. 2nd ed.
c1993.
ISBN 0-7814-4156-0 (pbk.)
eISBN 978-1-4347-0522-8

1. Pastoral theology. I. Sugden, Howard F. Confident pastoral leadership.

II. Title.
BV4011.3.W54 2005
253--dc22
2004026810

2005 by SCRIPTEX, INC., WARREN W. WIERSBE, President Revised and updated: original edition copyrighted 1973 by Moody Publishers, under the title When Pastors Wonder How; revised edition copyrighted 1993 by Baker Book House Company, under the title Confident Pastoral Leadership.

First Edition 2005

I t is difficult to believe that thirty years have passed since the first edition of this book was published. I rejoice that it has been in print all this time and that the response has been encouraging. For whatever help this book has been to those in pastoral ministry, I give thanks to the Lord. All the glory belongs to him.

I am not pastoring now, and my friend Howard Sugden has gone to be with our Lord. But our hearts have always been, and my heart remains, in the local church and with those who serve there. Many changes have taken place in the religious landscape during these thirty years, some encouraging and some frightening; but I have seen also that the inspired Word of God still meets the needs of Gods people. Preach the Word! is still our mandate.

When my friends at Cook Communications/Victor Books suggested a new printing of this book, I suggested that we revise and expand it so that I might deal with some of the contemporary issues that the church faces. Cook Communications agreed, and the result is the volume you now hold in your hands. I want to thank my son David W. Wiersbe for his helpful suggestions. My editor Craig Bubeck was encouraging and patient as he waited for the manuscript.

If you are a young preacher, you may find this book quoting preachers from the past who are strangers to you. I urge you to get acquainted with them and to read their sermons and their biographies. They will enrich you. My book Living with the Giants (Baker) will introduce you to some of them and give you helpful bibliographies.

These are great days for ministry. May the Lord help us all to be faithful until he comes!

Warren W. Wiersbe

G od has called us to be pastors and to preach his Word, and, quite frankly, we enjoy it. Phillips Brooks put it beautifully in his Lectures on Preaching : Let us rejoice with one another that in a world where there are a great many good and happy things for men to do, God has given us the best and happiest, and made us preachers of His Truth.

It has been our privilege to pastor small churches and large churches. At present, both of us are ministering in city churches. It has also been our privilege to minister in various conferences across the country. The most rewarding have often been the pastors conferences where we have met with our brethren in the ministry and shared one anothers burdens. Often we have conducted a question time when we have tried to encourage and to enlighten the brethren from the Word and from our own experience.

The questions and answers in this book have grown out of these seminars. It has often been suggested to us that we publish answers to the questions that have been asked most frequently, and this explains the publication of the book you are now reading. These questions deal primarily with the pastor and his work in the church. This is not a book about theological problems or Bible questions.

We do not expect every pastor to agree with every answer we have given. But we do expect our brethren to consider each answer honestly and ask for Gods direction. We have not sprinkled these pages with I remember a case when and Now, this is what happened to me. Pastors are busy people who appreciate answers that are to the point. No doubt every pastor can write his own illustrations from his own experience.

Please keep in mind that we wrote out of our own experience and therefore cannot speak with authority about every local church. Our own ministry has been spent in churches with independent ministries, though in fellowship with others of like faith. We realize that different denominations have different ways of handling matters, particularly in the areas of church discipline and calling pastors. The brethren pastoring in these churches can still, we think, benefit from what we have to say.

We must confess that we had young pastors in mind as we wrote these pages. For some reason, many of them are not taught these basic principles in school; and if we can save them some trouble and trials, we will feel amply repaid for our efforts. But the experienced pastor might be able to pick up a few new ideas or to be reminded of some forgotten principle. The man who boasts that he has fifteen years experience in the ministry may not be telling the truth: perhaps he has had one years experiencefifteen times.

We send this book forth with the prayer that it will assist and encourage our brethren in the ministry, so that we might all be effective in winning the lost and in building Christs church.

Howard F. Sugden and Warren W. Wiersbe

How can I know Im called to the ministry and how important is the assurance of a special call?

T he work of the ministry is too demanding and difficult for anyone to enter without a sense of divine calling. Too often people enter and then leave the ministry because they lack the sense of divine urgency that comes with a call. Nothing less than a definite call from God can ever give you success when the going gets tough in the ministry.

How do we know we are called? For some, there is a crisis experiencelike those experienced by Moses at the burning bush or Isaiah in the temple or Paul on the Damascus Road. But for most of us there is simply that inescapable growing conviction that God has his hand upon us. Paul expressed it this way: I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! (see 1 Cor. 9:16). When you are called, you have an inner conviction that will not permit you to invest your life in any other vocation.